It Came from the Bathroom

“Bruh, what is this?” 

I didn’t like how the purple and green sludge wobbled as I poked it with my mop. Kevin poked his head into the bathroom door and looked at the disgusting liquid for a good solid minute. The previous night our parents were out of town and my brother and I decided to hold a party. Mad it was wild! After the party ended, my brother and I spent the whole morning cleaning up the house so our parents would suspect us. We had gotten everything clean except for the bathroom which had some funky purple and green blob laying in the middle of the floor. 

“Dunno,” he said shrugging. “Probably just vomit.”

“I’ve never seen vomit that looks like that before,” I said, afraid the pool of gunk would spring to life any second. “Plus what type of vomit sparkles?”

“Dude it was a wild party,” my brother said, his interest in the discussion clearly waning. “Someone could have sprinkled glitter on it. Just clean it up!” 

I wanted to explain to him that was impossible, but I decided to let him see it for himself. I plunge the mop directly on top of it. Instead of going through it and tearing it up it just wiggled like a big blob of jello. I did three more times to further prove my point. I looked at my brother and raised an eyebrow. 

“Well…” he looked unsure what he wanted to say next. “You’ll just need something stronger then.”

“Like what? The vacuum?”

He rubbed his finger under his chin. I couldn’t believe that he was actually considering it! 

“What?” he shouted. “It’s better than nothing.” 

Frustrated, I dropped the mop onto the floor and headed to the downstairs closet. The closet was directly under the stairs and always reminded me of the cupboard in Harry Potter. Instead of a bed and an owl locked in a cage, the walls were covered in cleaning supplies. Our parents were sort of clean freaks and couldn’t stand the sight of dirt anywhere, no matter how big or small. 

“Bruh, get up here quick!” 

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying!” 

I gritted my teeth. I hate it when my brother gets impatient. Can’t he see there’s only so much I can do with so little time? I dragged the vacuum up the stairs. Once I got to the bathroom I was completely perplexed by what I saw. The purple and green vomit appeared to be gone, but my brother had a shocked expression on his face. 

“What happened?” I demanded. 

Slowly he pointed his hand toward the ceiling. I poked my head in and looked up. 

“Uh, how did it get on the ceiling?”

“Bruh, you should have been up here! It just stretched itself like playdoh and stuck itself onto the wall!” 

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. I suspected he had the bright idea of grabbing the putrid substance with his bare hands and sticking it onto the ceiling in an attempt to hide it. The only thing I couldn’t figure was why he didn’t throw it in the trashcan or out the window. I simply brushed it off as him showing the hubris of his stupidity. If I was going to get rid of this monstrosity I would have to do it by myself. 

Without a moment of hesitation, I plugged in the vacuum and pointed the nozzle directly at the disgusting piece of goop on the ceiling. For a second or two it seemed like my plan had worked! The sludge stretched off the ceiling and landed directly on the nozzle. For once my brother was right! It did stretch like fresh out of the jar playdoh! However, a new problem arose when the stuff refused to go down. It stuck onto the nozzle like glue and no matter what I did it wouldn’t come off! I turned the vacuum off thinking that would help, but it didn’t. I pushed the trash can and knocked the nozzle on the rim, but that didn’t work either.  

“Maybe someone on Reddit will know how to get rid of it?” 

“Please, when has Reddit been good for anything?” I turned the vacuum off. “Plus, we don’t have time for random strangers to respond. Our parents will be back in an hour!”

I unscrewed the nozzle, held it like a torch, and walked down the stairs. Hopefully, one of the knives in the kitchen would be enough to wedge the gunk off and into the trash. I first used a butter knife but when that didn’t work I moved to a steak knife and then finally a butcher knife. Why wasn’t it coming off? I placed the nozzle in the sink praying the water would be enough for it to fall and get shredded into the garbage dispenser. The only thing the water did was make the ooze appear wetter than before. What was this stuff? 

“Bruh, let me try!” 

I would have protested, but I was out of breath and fresh out of ideas. I handed the nozzle to him and waited to see what exactly he had planned. 

He held up the nozzle and eyed the green and purple slop for a moment or two and then grabbed it with his bare hands!

“Bruh, what are you doing?!?”

“Just let me do this, bruh!”

At first, he grabbed onto the edge as if the sludge was the lid of its own pickle jar. He used so much force that his face turned bright red, and I could make out the veins bulging from his forehead. I rolled my eyes. Of course, he would try to use blunt force to solve the problem,that’s how he solved most of his problems! Then as if touched with a stroke of magic, my brother had a genius idea. He pointed the nozzle to where the gunk was pointed to the ceiling and began tearing it up with his bare hands. To my complete surprise, his plan of attack actually worked!  Without a moment of hesitation, he threw each of the pieces into the trash can. It only took him a few seconds before he made the nozzle completely clean. 

“There, problem solved!”

I looked at my brother with my jaw hitting the ground. 

“Well, I guess I owe you an apology,” I said to him. 

He smiled before the trashcan suddenly began to violently shake. We had no time to worry about it then as we could hear our parent's SUV pull into the driveway. 

“Quick, dump into the garbage!” I told him. I walked out of the kitchen and onto the front porch hoping to stall my folks as long as I could. 

I straightened my shirt and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I gave them large and long hugs, asked them how their trip was, and made up a convoluted story of what my brother and I were up to while they were away. Thankfully, I stalled them just enough for my brother to get rid of the goop and join me on the front porch. 

When my parents opened the door they gave a sigh of relief as they walked into a clean untouched house. They even said it looked cleaner than when they left. Imagine that! 

My brother and I never saw the purple and green slime again. Then one day, we saw a report on the news of a purple and green blob monster attacking a small town not far from here. Now I don’t know about you, but my brother and I didn’t care about the attack one bit. Our house was clean, and our parents never suspected we had thrown a wild party inside it, and that’s all that really mattered.